Passions of War (9 page)

Again and again Tom reloaded and fired, oblivious now to whether his bullets found a living target, until his arms ached so much that he could scarcely support the rifle. To one side, he saw an artillery battery. Half its crew were either dead or wounded, but the survivors scrambled from gun to gun to keep up the fire. The enemy was closer now and it seemed they must be overrun at any moment. Then a bugle sounded and Ralph leapt to his feet, defying the bullets that whistled past him.

‘Fall back! Fall back!'

Those men who could still stand got up and, bent double, raced for the safety of some woods a few hundred yards away. Tom ran with them. Then a sight arrested him. A little to his right the remaining men of the gun crew were struggling to harness their horses to the gun limber. Two horses lay dead already, the others, terrified, reared and plunged. Without pausing for thought Tom changed course and ran to help. Catching the bridle of one horse, he succeeded in holding it until the straps attaching it to the gun had been buckled. Two other men harnessed the second beast and then one shouted, ‘Jump up, sir! Save the gun!'

Tom did not wait for a second invitation, but vaulted on to the horse's back and dug in his heels. Crouching low, with the gun limber rattling and swerving behind him, he rode at a flat gallop for the trees. The men were regrouping in a clearing and as he arrived one ran forward to hold the horse's head. As Tom slid to the ground the second gun team came careering into the clearing and the sergeant in charge came over.

‘Thank you for that, sir. I don't think we'd have got both guns away without your help. We can manage now.'

Tom went in search of Ralph, but the men were already moving out on to the road beyond the village and he could see no sign of him. A voice called, ‘Over here, sir!' and he saw his batman leading his horse.

‘Glad to see you're still with us, Matt,' he said, as he mounted, and the man grinned.

‘You too, sir, if you'll pardon the liberty.'

‘Have you seen Lieutenant Malham Brown?'

‘No, sir. I lost sight of him in the retreat. I expect he's ahead of us.'

It took Tom nearly an hour in the gathering darkness to find Ralph, trudging along with the common soldiers with a bandage round his head. He looked up as Tom slid to the ground beside him and for a moment his eyes were as blank as they had been in the casualty station at Mons. Then his face lit up.

‘Tom! Thank God! I thought you'd bought it!' He reached out and gripped Tom's shoulder and Tom slid an arm round him.

‘What about you? Is the wound serious?'

‘No, just a scratch.'

‘Where's your horse?'

‘Shot out from under me when I went back to round up the stragglers. I'll get a new one from the remounts when we halt.'

For a moment he let Tom support him. Then he straightened up. ‘Well, we held them for a day. I just hope that's long enough. Sooner or later we've got to call a halt and face up to them properly, or they'll sweep us into the sea.'

Six

On the afternoon of 26 August the London
Times
produced a special edition. The headline read
BROKEN BRITISH REGIMENTS
. In a despatch from Amiens, the reporter described the German advance and British losses. New recruits were urgently needed to reinforce the troops, the despatch concluded. By the next morning the recruiting offices were besieged by men wanting to sign up.

For Leonora it was a time of torment. Her anxiety about her brother and Tom was exacerbated by her own enforced inactivity. While the hundreds of new recruits marched, whistling, through the city streets it seemed that the only contribution the women of Britain were to be allowed to make was to knit socks and pack up parcels of ‘comforts' for their menfolk. Ashley-Smith was still on her way back from South Africa, and Mabel Stobart seemed to have disappeared completely. The FANYs busied themselves with stretcher drills and collecting equipment, but the chances of their being required seemed remote.

She received a letter with a New Zealand postmark:

Dear Leo,

This will only be a short letter as I don't have much time. I just want you to know that yesterday I rode into Wellington and signed up with the Wellington Mounted Rifles. It would only have been a matter of time before I was called up anyway, since I've been in the territorials since I was eighteen, but I wanted to get in as soon as possible. Looks as if this time I'll actually get to do some fighting instead of carrying stretchers. It's a different enemy this time, of course, but there are rumours that the Turks may come in on the side of Germany, so I might get to have another crack at them yet! I don't know if I'll make it as far as Europe. We're still waiting for news of embarkation. But if I do I hope I shall have a chance to see you – and perhaps Victoria, too.

What are you doing? I'm sure neither of you will be content to sit back and let the fellows do all the fighting. I shouldn't be surprised if we meet up again on another muddy battlefield. If I ever have the misfortune to get wounded, there's no one's face I'd rather see looking down at me when I come round from the anaesthetic!

I'll do my best to keep in touch, and look forward to hearing from you.

Yours affectionately,

Luke

One morning the telephone rang and Leo heard the voice of James Bartlett, the estate manager at Bramwell Hall. It was very unusual for him to ring and when he did his tone was normally restrained and respectful. This time he sounded near to tears.

‘They're taking the horses, Miss Leo!'

‘What? Who are, James? Taking them where?'

‘The army, Miss Leo. They came this morning with a document – all very proper and legal – saying they are entitled to requisition any horses.'

‘Have they taken them all?'

‘All of them, miss. Even your little chestnut mare.'

‘They've taken Amber? But that's ridiculous! She's too small for an officer's mount and anyway she'll bolt at the first sound of gunfire.'

‘I told them that, Miss Leo. But they wouldn't listen.'

‘And they've taken all the farm horses?'

‘Every one except old Bramble. They reckoned he was past it.'

‘How will you manage?'

‘God knows, miss – pardon the language. But there's one good thing. Most of the harvest is in. There won't be so much work for the horses until spring ploughing season. Maybe by then it will be all over.'

‘Maybe,' Leo said, without conviction. She drew a breath and sighed. ‘There's nothing we can do about it, James. You must just manage as best you can. Buy horses if there are any to be had, but I doubt if there will be. Is there anything I can do to help?'

‘No, no, Miss Leo. Don't you fret.' She could hear that he had himself under control now. ‘I just wanted to let you know. As you say, there's nowt we can do except pray the war doesn't last too long.'

‘Amen to that!' Leo said.

When she had put the phone down tears welled up in her eyes. She had maintained a stoic attitude to her manager, but the thought of her beautiful little mare, her father's last gift, being caught up in the chaos of the battlefield was almost unbearable. She bit her lips. First Sasha, then Ralph and Tom, and now her beloved horse had been swallowed up in this pointless war and it was quite possible that she would never see any of them again.

Acute as her anxiety was for Tom and Ralph, it was doubled by the news from Serbia. Max, who was still at his post as a correspondent for an American newspaper in Belgrade, wrote to her every week and in this way she had learned that for two weeks the city had been bombarded by the Austrian's heavy Krupp's guns from across the Danube and Sava Rivers, while the main element of the Serbian army, short of supplies and ammunition, had struggled back from the south where they had been guarding the borders of Macedonia. Then had come the news of the battle of Cer Mountain, at which the Austrians had been driven back by the Serbs under General Putnik and it seemed Belgrade had been delivered from the immediate threat. Max wrote, however, that the Austrians were still massed on the borders and he expected a renewed attack at any time. Sasha, he had found out, had survived that battle, but Leo could only wonder how much longer his luck would hold.

After a long silence, which stretched her nerves almost to breaking point, she received a letter from Tom.

17 Sept

My Dear Leo,

Please forgive me for not writing sooner. There really has not been a spare moment in the last few weeks. I can't go into details about places and dates but I think you will have read in the papers about the fighting around Mons. That was followed by a ‘strategic withdrawal' which involved marching for twenty hours out of every twenty-four, until we were almost on the outskirts of Paris. How the men did it I shall never know. It was hard enough on horseback. Now, thank God, we have stopped retreating and the German advance has been halted at the Marne. Everyone is exhausted and we seem to have reached a kind of stalemate, so there's no knowing where we might go next.

I've seen things that have filled me with admiration, and others that have made me despair. For those of us, like you and me, who have some experience of modern warfare the positively medieval ideas of some of our commanders are almost unbelievable. Would you believe that the French cavalry charge machine guns, wearing their polished cuirasses and plumed helmets, as if they were going on parade? And the ordinary French soldier wears a red coat and blue trousers, as if the intention is to make him a perfect target for enemy fire. I have seen them shot down like a flock of pheasants.

Enough of this! I am well – surprisingly so, in fact – and so is Ralph. He would write but he spends all his spare time going round his men, listening to their troubles and cheering them along. He is a very popular officer, justifiably. I will write again when I can and meanwhile I enclose a few of my more light-hearted sketches.

With my love,

Tom

Two days later Leo learned from the papers that the Austrians had successfully invaded Serbia and were besieging Belgrade.

One day Leo and Victoria arrived at FANY HQ with the rest of the Corps to discover Ashley-Smith awaiting them with her second-in-command, Lilian Franklin. In response to the chorus of delighted greetings she said, ‘Well, the good news is, on the boat home I met a M. Louis Franck, who is the Belgian Minister for the Colonies. When I told him what we were hoping to do he said that the Belgian army would welcome us with open arms. Apparently, there already is a British-run field hospital in Antwerp and I have the name of the secretary. I'm going to see him tomorrow, to offer our services.'

At last it seemed that the period of frustrating inactivity might be at an end, but Leo's optimism was short-lived. The following day Ashley-Smith reported that the secretary had insisted that he had no need of the Corps' assistance, though he had grudgingly conceded that she might go out herself, if she could get a
laissez-passer
from the Belgian government.

‘Of course, he was convinced I wouldn't get one,' Smith added grimly, ‘but I've proved him wrong there.'

Two days later she left for Antwerp.

For a week the FANYs chewed their collective fingernails and waited. Then Franklin came into the room where they were gloomily rolling bandages, waving a telegram.

‘She's done it! The Belgians have offered Ash a three-hundred-bed hospital and we are to go out there and help her to run it.'

The cheer that went up must have been heard, Leo reckoned, in the street outside. The rest of the day was spent in a flurry of packing equipment and personal belongings.

Next morning, Leo woke to hear the newsboys shouting in the street and caught the word ‘Antwerp'. She sent Millie out to buy a paper and read the headline that put an end to their hopes. ‘German Army At The Gates Of Antwerp'.

Antwerp fell to the Germans on 10 October and there had been no word from Ashley-Smith. The mood of euphoria evaporated, leaving Leo and the other FANYs more depressed than ever. Then, ten days later, Ashley-Smith walked into their HQ, spick and span in her uniform and apparently unharmed. She was at once besieged with questions.

‘Where have you been?'

‘How did you get away?'

‘Did you see the Germans? How come you weren't interned?'

‘If you'll let me get a word in edgeways,' she responded in her soft Scottish burr, ‘I'll tell you. I was in Ghent, helping to rescue wounded soldiers. When the Germans overran us I was evacuated to a place called Eecloo but then I heard that there was a British officer in the Flandria hotel in Ghent who was too ill to be moved, so of course I had to go back.'

‘Go back!' someone exclaimed. ‘Weren't you terrified?'

‘Oh, my heart was in my boots, all right. But the young man's relief at seeing me was enough to make it all worthwhile. I managed to get him into a nursing home but the next day it was taken over by the Germans to billet their soldiers. I expected them to arrest me at any moment, but no one bothered us.'

‘Did the young officer recover?'

‘No, sadly. I sat up with him for two nights but on the third morning he died. I stayed to arrange his funeral and then I went to the German CO and asked for a safe conduct out of the city.'

‘Were you wearing uniform?' Leo asked.

‘Oh, yes! It was very funny to see the German's reaction. I suppose a woman in any uniform is pretty surprising to them, but to see a woman in British khaki in an occupied city – well, I think the German word for it is
verbluffend.
Of course, they refused me the safe conduct, but at least they didn't arrest me. I swanked out as if I owned the place and, do you know, one sergeant drew his men up to attention and saluted me!'

‘Good for you!' Lilian exclaimed. ‘But how did you get away in the end?'